A couple of years ago (January 2024), the account for Elmo, the red Muppet from Sesame Street, asked on X a simple innocuous question: “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?”
Thousands of people responded, pouring out their hearts to Elmo:
“I’m tired, Elmo,” said one user.
“The world is burning around us, Elmo,” said another.
“Elmo I’m depressed and broke,” one wrote.
Author Hanif Abdurraqib replied, “Each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror, one that was previously unfathomable in nature. However, I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thanks for asking.”
After about nine thousand responses in nearly 24 hours, the account posted again. “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked!” (Callie Holtermann, “Elmo Asked an Innocuous Question,” New York Times, 1-30-24; www.PreachingToday.com).
It seems that a lot of people have lost hope these days, perhaps even some of you.
So what do you do when your situation seems hopeless? What do you do when you see no way out of the mess you’re in? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 36, where the prophet spoke to Israel during their darkest days. Jerusalem was destroyed, hopes were shattered, and the people were living in captivity in Babylon. Their unfaithfulness had led them there—yet God was not done with them, and He is not done with you no matter where you find yourself these days. Take a look.
Ezekiel 36:22-23 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes (ESV).
God promises to intervene, not for Israel’s sake—they didn’t deserve it, no! God promises to intervene for the sake of His own reputation. Israel, through their disobedience and idolatry, had profaned God’s holy name. God had to send them into exile, which caused the surrounding nations to question His faithfulness and power. So God is going to act to restore His reputation among the nations, to restore His honor.
In the same way, our actions have profaned God’s holy name, so God must act to restore His honor today, as well. You see, God’s action is rooted in His character not in our merit. Otherwise, our situation would not only SEEM hopeless. It would BE hopeless, because all of us are sinners, deserving far worse.
Author and pastor Tim Keller once said, “Here's the gospel: you're more sinful than you ever dared believe; you're more loved than you ever dared hope.” For God moves, not because we are worthy, but because He is faithful. So, when your situation seems hopeless…
TRUST GOD TO BRING NEW HONOR TO HIS NAME.
Don’t depend on your own merit. Depen on God’s character and faithfulness. Rely on the Lord to restore His reputation in your life.
God designed us to reflect His image (Genesis 1:26-27), that is, to reflect His character, like a mirror reflects you. However, sin broke the mirror, so that at best people can only see bits and pieces of God in us. Consequently, God came down to “fix the mirror,” so to speak. Jesus died on a cross and rose again to take away the cracks (or the sin) that defaced the mirror.
As a result, the Bible says of those of us who depend on Him, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). As we live our lives in dependence upon Christ, He removes the cracks little by little, so that we can better reflect His glory. This then restores His reputation in a world that all too often questions His character.
What do high-end clothing manufacturers do when they discover a defect in one of their products coming off the production line? Well, they used to send those pieces to a landfill or overseas. But now, they send those pieces to Jeff Denby and Nicole Bassett.
Denby and Bassett are the founders of The Renewal Workshop, a factory that specializes in repairing irregular or defective clothing. Client apparel firms send their defective pieces to the Renewal Workshop where they are restored to like-new condition, then resold on what they call “recommerce” websites affiliated with their original manufacturer brands.
Bassett said, “It is unique for brands to allow someone else to fix their products. We invested a lot into developing repair standards so that brands could feel confident in the quality of the work we do so that they can stand behind their products being sold as renewed” (Jordan Hernandez, “Big fashion companies send ‘ruined’ clothes to Cascade Locks for a chance at a new life,” Oregon Live, 1-5-22; www.PreachingToday.com).
You see, their brand names are at stake, so they use only the best people to restore their products.
In the same way, God’s brand name is at stake in the way you live your life. That’s why He sent Jesus to make the repairs in your life, which sin has ruined. Please, stop trying to fix yourself and trust Jesus to do it for you. Give your life to Christ, so He can restore you to like-new condition and so restore God’s honor among the nations.
When your situation seems hopeless, 1st, trust God to bring new honor to His name. Then 2nd…
TRUST GOD TO GIVE YOU A NEW HEART.
Rely on God’s Spirit to change you from the inside out. Depend on the Lord to clean you up and replace your rebellion with respect and love for Him. That’s what God promised He would do for Israel.
Ezekiel 36:24-32 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel (ESV).
For His own sake, God promised to make outward changes to Israel’s desolate land (vs.24, 30). He also promised to make inward changes to the Jewish people themselves. He promised to cleanse them from sin (vs.25, 29), to give them a new heart of love for Him (vs.26, 28), and to put His Spirit in each of them (vs.27).
Now, for the nation of Israel, God will fulfill these promises when Jesus comes again. Then, according to Zechariah 12, God will “pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look… on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child” (Zechariah 12:10). They will realize their grave mistake in crucifying their own Messiah. They will repent in sorrow with the result that “all Israel will be saved when their Deliverer comes from Zion, banishes ungodliness from Jacob, and takes away their sins” (Romans 11:26-27).
This is what God promised He would do for Israel in the future, But this is what God promises He will do for you today when you put your trust in Christ.
First, trust Christ to cleanse you from all sin.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
All you have to do is admit you’re a sinner and trust Christ to save you from your sins.
Pastor Steve Brown put it this way:
Have you ever watched a little girl get her new dress dirty just before church? Little girls get their dresses dirty sometimes when they really don't mean to, and then they're faced with a number of options.
They can try to hide the dirt by folding the dress over and walking close to their mother. Or they can pretend that they don't know about the dirt: “Dirt? I didn't know there was any dirt on me!” Or they can just try to stay away from mother so that mother can't see the dirt. If mother comes into the living room, the daughter goes into the bedroom. She'll try to get in the car before her mother gets in.
Or she can do what she ought to do if she has a mother who reflects the grace of God. She can go to her mother and say, “Look, my dress is dirty.” If her mother is right on, she does something about the dirt but not the daughter (Steve Brown, “The Prime Principle,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 107).
Please, stop trying to hide your sin and just tell God, “Look, my life is dirty.” If you do that, He’ll do something about the dirt, but not you. He’ll get rid of the dirt, not you. So #1, trust Christ to cleanse you from all sin.
Then #2, trust Christ to give you a new heart. Rely on Jesus to completely transform you from the inside out, so that you have a new relationship with God.
The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).
Or in the language of Ezekiel 36, “[God] will give you a new heart, and a new spirit… [He] will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
God doesn’t just want to clean you up. He wants to make you completely new!
London businessman Lindsay Clegg wanted to sell a warehouse. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash around the interior. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, Clegg took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.
“Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “When I buy this place, I'm going to build something completely different. I don't want the building; I want the site” (Ian L. Wilson, Barrie, Ontario. Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 3; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what God wants for you. He doesn’t want your efforts to improve your life—That’s as trivial as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. No! God wants to completely replace your old life with a new one. He wants to make all things new, starting with your heart.
So #1, trust Christ to cleanse you from all sin. #2, trust Christ to give you a new heart.
And #3, trust Christ to put his Spirit in you, for the Holy Spirit is the key to a totally transformed life.
Romans 8 says, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You [who know Christ], however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:8-11).
Every believer has the Spirit dwelling within them, giving them a brand-new life, eternal life, in Christ.
Pastor and author Rankin Wilbourne explains it this way:
Consider two superheroes, Batman and Spider-Man. Batman is a rich and strong man with lots of cool gadgets. His superpowers stem from his external possessions. Spider-Man has a few accessories as well, but he is a superhero because of the spider powers he obtained when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. His nature has been changed. Now he has a new power accessible to him, within him.
[God’s Spirit] in you makes you more like Spider-Man than Batman. Something alien to you, from outside of you, has entered into you and changed your nature. You now have power that you did not have before (Rankin Wilbourne, Union With Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God, David C. Cook, 2016, pages 52-53; www.PreachingToday.com).
Oh, my dear friends, when your situation seems hopeless, 1st, trust God to bring new honor to His name; 2nd, trust God to give you a new heart through His indwelling Spirit. And 3rd…
TRUST GOD TO GIVE YOU A NEW HOPE.
Rely on the Lord to change your future. Depend on Christ to totally transform your prospects. That’s what God promised the nation of Israel.
Ezekiel 36:33-36 “Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it (ESV).
God promised to rebuild Israel’s ruined cities and restore Israel’s desolate land.
Now, just 80 years ago, no one could imagine this prophecy ever being fulfilled. That’s why many Bible scholars spiritualized these prophecies and applied them to the church.
As Mark Twain passed through the Holy Land in 1867, he was wholly unimpressed with what he saw. Actually, he seemed more than unimpressed; he was disappointed. The smattering of Arab inhabitants that he came across had let the place deteriorate. The roads were nearly impassable in many areas, the sites were run down, and the whole place felt desolate. He wrote:
“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are un-picturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent… Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective—distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes” (Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Function, Chapter 56)
That all changed in 1948 with the birth of Israel. The Promised Land was in ruins as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth, but God had promised a coming restoration… That blessing is evident today. Journalist and resident Israeli, Amir Tsarfati, says, “When you drive through the Galilee or down the Jordan Valley, you will see nut farms and fruit orchards galore, many producing more than one crop annually. The Jezreel, where I live, is Israel’s breadbasket. Fertile fields as far as the eye can see” (Amir Tsarfati, Exploring Ezekiel pp.179-181).
You don’t need to spiritualize God’s promises. Just wait and see! He will fulfill each one literally like He is doing for Israel right now! God promised to rebuild Israel’s ruined cities and restore Israel’s desolate land.
More than that, God promised to repopulate the nation, as well.
Ezekiel 36:37-38 “Thus says the Lord GOD: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the LORD” (ESV).
While Jerusalem lies in ruins, with most of Israel’s population dead and the rest in exile, God promised to fill their wasted cities with “flocks of people.”
This was unimaginable Ezekiel’s day. Shoot! This was unimaginable just 80 short years ago. And yet, God is keeping His promise to Israel just as He described it here. The numbers of Jews migrating to Israel is in the tens of thousands every year. We are seeing the fulfillment of God’s promise right before our eyes! Can the promise of Jesus’ Second Coming be that far behind?
In Isaiah, God asked the question, “Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).
God asked a question and answered it Himself. Then 2,700 years later, He proved His answer. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel came into existence… Israel was reborn in a single day (Amir Tsarfati, Exploring Ezekiel, p. 188).
And now, tens of thousands of Israelis are returning every year just like God promised.
To the Jewish exiles in Babylon, God’s promise gave them a new hope. And God’s promises can give you a new hope, as well. Now, I’m not talking about His promise to restore and repopulate the land of Israel—that applies only to the nation of Israel. But the literal fulfillment of this promise can give you the assurance that God will keep all His promises to you, no matter how desperate your situation.
He has promised to “supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). He has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). But God’s greatest promise is the promise that Jesus will come again! (John 14:3; Acts 1:11; Revelation 22:7, 12, 20). In times of despair, we look forward to that “blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
Conventional wisdom says you don’t want to ruin a good story by learning about the end in the middle of the story itself. A movie is a whole lot more fun to watch, or so we think, if we don’t know how it ends before we watch it. That’s why we appreciate the movie or book reviewers that give us a “spoiler alert” at the beginning of their reviews.
But a recent study done at the University of California, San Diego, suggests that spoilers don't spoil stories. Instead, they might even enhance our enjoyment of a story. The study ran three experiments based on 12 short stories. 30 people read each version of the story, one with a spoiler alert at the beginning and the other which kept readers in suspense until the end. Surprisingly, the researchers found that participants preferred the “spoiled” versions of suspenseful stories. For example, in one case, researchers told participants before reading the story that a condemned man's daring escape is all just a fantasy before the noose snaps around his neck. That spoiler alert helped them enjoy the story even more (ScienceDaily, "Spoiler Alert: Stories Are Not Spoiled by 'Spoilers,'" ScienceDaily.com, 8-11-11; www. PreachingToday.com).
The Bible has given us a spoiler alert—Jesus comes with great fanfare and glory to make all things right. Let it help you enjoy your story especially when the middle seems desperate.
When your situation seems hopeless, 1st, trust God to bring new honor to His name; 2nd, trust God to give you a new heart; and 3rd, trust God to give you a new hope.
Author Barbara Brown Taylor writes: Several summers ago, I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up the beach to dig her nest and empty herself into it while slow, salt tears ran from her eyes. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she had finished her work but returned next morning to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks, only they led in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already hot as asphalt in the morning sun.
A little ways inland I found her, exhausted and all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger, who returned with a jeep to rescue her. As I watched in horror, he flipped her over on her back, wrapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to the trailer hitch on his jeep. Then he took off, yanking her body forward so fast that her open mouth filled with sand and then disappeared underneath her as her neck bent so far I feared it would break.
The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach; I followed the path that the prow of her shell cut in the sand. At ocean's edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up again. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again.
Then a particularly large wave broke over her, and she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs as she did. As I watched, she revived. Every fresh wave brought life back to her until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the water that was her home.
Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or being saved by the hands that turn your life upside down (Barbara Brown Taylor, "Preaching the Terrors," The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching, Zondervan, 2005; www.PreachingToday.com).
Has God turned your life upside down? Trust that He has done it only to save you, not kill you.
